Inquisitor, Schminquisitor

[rvg]

I'm doing well with my Early, Expert, GA French campaign (vanilla VI, 2.01). It's just shy of 1250 and I'm winning on points, and allied with the Pope -- usually as a Catholic faction I take it as a point of pride to ally with the holy father, unless I'm the HRE of course.

Although we're not whaling on each other with armies, and have been allied for much of the game, His Popeness has apparently decided to make my life miserable by sending a 6-star Inquisitor through my wealthiest territories and burning generals and governors there. My greatest frustration was when my 8-acumen governor of Flanders (who was no slouch on the Piety, either) was burned at the stake.

There's no stopping this 6-star nightmare (assassins are useless), but that's not really the point of this thread. I was wondering, is there any logic behind the AI's decision of who to go after with their inquisitors? Why does the Pope keep coming after me? Why not go after the uppity Spanish, who are about as big as I am? How do these targets get chosen?

Put half a dozen bishops/cardinals into every province you own.... the inquisitor won't be able to do jack.

[Martok]

Put half a dozen bishops/cardinals into every province you own.... the inquisitor won't be able to do jack.

That is about the only real defense against them (aside from assassinating them, of course). Problem is, it takes a *lot* of bishops & cardinals to neutralize the buggers--more than just a half a dozen in my exerpience (especially if it's an Inquisitor with a few stars or a Grand Inquisitor). Cardinals are pretty effective in neutralizing them; but their numbers are limited, due to only being able to train them in whichever province has your lone Cathedral.

I often end up creating a "crack anti-Inquisitor squad" (bonus points for anyone who knows the Monty Python reference ). It's usually composed of 3-4 Cardinals, and about 15-20 Bishops. Their sole task is to follow around any Inqusitor/GI that wanders into my territory, making sure he doesn't get out of hand.